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“You’re not tire-d of them?”
“Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “That might have been a bridge too far.”
“I knew it would fall flat.” He groaned, and I smiled at him, even though my heart wasn’t quite in it. With the help of Russell’s video, we got the car jacked up and the spare on. When we’d tightened the lug nuts and put the hubcap back on, we looked at each other in silent amazement.
“Did we just—do that?” Russell asked.
“I think we did.” I was still sweaty, and my back was sore, but we’d changed a tire.
And in that moment, the only person I wanted to tell was Gillian.
“Go team,” Russell said, holding up his hand.
“Go team,” I said, laughing as I slapped his palm.
Russell drove us—very slowly, hazards on—to the 76 with the garage that he’d found. We didn’t play any music, or even talk—both of us were sitting very still, listening for any signs of trouble, or indications that the tire had been put back on wrong and was currently detaching itself and rolling down the highway.
I didn’t start to breathe easier until we pulled into the garage part of the gas station and Russell cut the engine. Even if we’d done things wrong, we’d made it this far.
Russell went to the garage, to see if he could find a mechanic to look at the tire and check if we’d done it okay, and I headed into the mini-mart, enjoying the blast of air-conditioning that hit me as I stepped inside. I used the bathroom and washed my hands for much longer than usual, trying to get the grease off them.
When I came back out, I could see Russell still in the garage area, talking to a 76 employee in coveralls. Feeling like I needed to stretch my legs, I walked in the opposite direction, toward the parking lot, and just beyond it, the highway. I pulled out my phone to check the time on the map, automatically—before I remembered there was no need for this. We didn’t have to hurry anymore. I was definitely going to get home before my dad now. Because I wasn’t going to see him before I went to college. I had to draw in a breath as a wave of sadness walloped me.
To have to do this on my own, on both ends, suddenly felt really unfair, and the tears that had been lurking behind my eyes edged closer to falling.
Gillian did offer to pick you up, Katy reminded me, her voice gentle. You shut it down.
I had shut it down. Because I hadn’t wanted to—what? Give her the… satisfaction of helping me? It seemed so stupid now, and so childish.
All at once, my thoughts were racing, going as fast as the cars tearing down the highway. Images and flashes of memories were flooding my mind. Gillian smiling across the car at me, McDonald’s bag between us. Chloe, looking impossibly young, picking up her daughter. Wylie in the morning sunlight, talking about dashed dreams. And Andy, running away and not being able to find his way home again.
Something that Didi and Katy had said was echoing in my mind—
Darcy.
You know we’re not actually here, right?
That we’ve never been here?
That there’s actually nobody here but you?
I took a breath, then let it out.
Of course I knew this—I’d always known it. I wasn’t disassociating or anything. Didi was at Colgate, in upstate New York. Katy was at Scripps in Claremont. I hadn’t talked to either of them—neither one had any idea about anything that had happened over the course of the last day. They’d never even heard of Russell. It had just seemed easier—less lonely—to imagine what they would say in this situation.
But it had been me, this whole time.
Which meant I actually knew what I wanted to do, even if I needed to pretend to be my best friends in order to hear it.
I unlocked my phone, my hand hesitating over the screen for only a moment.
Then I pressed the button to call my mother.
CHAPTER 19 Monday
1:45 P.M.
I held the phone against my ear, listening to it ring. What if I finally got up the courage to call her—and it went right to voicemail? I had just resigned myself to this when Gillian picked up, sounding out of breath.
